Page 3 of Quest for her Knights
“Help me to the other door,” she says, pointing to one across the room.
I decide to save my questions for later and help her. She keeps hissing in pain, her hand clutching her stomach.
When we reach the door, she places her palm against it. Again, light expands, much brighter this time, causing me to shield my eyes.
When it fades, she pulls the door open, and my jaw drops at what’s on the other side.
“What the—oomph!” I cry out as someone barrels through the doorway, knocking me over in the process.
The woman runs across the room and tries to open the door we came through, but it’s locked. She screams in frustration.
“Let me out!” she snarls, turning to face us with clenched fists and a scowl.
She’s wearing a pale blue medieval-style dress, similar to Aribella’s, but that’s not what has me frozen.
What has me staring in shock… is that she looks exactly like me.
“What the actual hell is going on?” I ask, slowly getting to my feet.
I hear Ari sigh as she comes to stand beside me. “I guess I have a lot of explaining to do.”
Chapter two
Elora
My mind is spinning. I pace Ari’s bookshop, waiting for her to return. She took herguestupstairs to her apartment hours ago and told me she’d be back once she finished explaining things to her. I asked if I could go too so that she could explain it to both of us at the same time, but she said it would be too hard to explain two sides of this at once.
So here I am, pacing her bookshop and wondering what the hell just happened. Was that some sort of magic? Is Ari a witch? No, she’d tell me if she was, wouldn’t she?
I hear the door at the back of the shop, the one that leads to the stairs up to her apartment, open and close, followed by the sound of her gentle footsteps approaching. When she sees me, she sighs and holds out two wine glasses, both filled to the brim.
“Drink?”
“God, yes!” I say, taking the offered glass as we settle back into the beanbag chairs we were sitting on a few hours ago.
We both take a few sips, watching each other, saying nothing.
“Soo…” I trail off, waiting for her to start.
“So,” she says with a sigh. “Where do I even start?”
“Are you a witch?”
“A witch? Heavens, no!” Her surprised expression shifts to a frown as she adds, “Well… at least, I don’t think I am.”
“Ariiiiiiii,” I whine, letting my head drop back. “Explain what that even means.”
“Okay, well, I do seem to have some sort of magic, but I don’t know why or what it is. I don’t think I’m a witch, but I also don’t know what I am.”
“And what was that back there?” I gesture toward her office. “Did you… open a portal or something?”
“Yes. That’s exactly what I did.The Enchanted Veilis the white office space you saw. I have to go there in order to open a door to Dyconia, which is where that woman was from.”
“My doppelganger?”
“Yeah… about that,” she says, licking her lips as she stares into her wine glass, looking nervous.
“Ari, you can tell me. I won't be mad.”
